Introducing Lily White!

I mentioned our new car a few posts back, here she is.  All pretty and clean, here is Lily White!  She is a 2012 Toyota Camry SE (which means she's zippy).  She's already been to the car hospital to get a new gas tank and rocker panel (due to a road hazard puncturing her tank and cracking the rocker panel...).  This is after we picked her up and she had just been detailed.  Did I mention we live on a dirt (well, now muddy) road?  She won't look like this for long.

Christmas Happened Here too!

Here are the 3 little Loops in their Christmas jammies.  They got to open them on Christmas Eve.

I took this picture of the tree on Christmas morning, before the festivities began.  The mass of presents was overwhelming the room.  Santa sets his presents out in the open for each child to see.  So far this hasn't posed any problems, but I can see this might in the future....  Maren got the princess doll house and Teagan got the American Girl Doll.  Declan is in the clear with Lego's.

I actually took this picture of Teagan with her doll in matching dresses after the presents were all opened, so they are a little out of order.  I'm artistic like that.  In the foreground you see Declan, with his Legos and Maren is playing with her presents while wearing her new Ariel mermaid dress up. 

This is when Declan first walked into the room and saw his Lego Pirates of the Caribbean Black Pearl ship.  He was thrilled.  And to think he doesn't believe!

Maren got princesses for the dollhouse.  If it's princess, it's all good in her book!

Nellie (left) and Jack (right) heard that Santa has reindeer.  They had to keep an eye out in the event that Santa made the mistake of landing them in our yard.  They are both really good at chasing deer of all kinds.

Declan in in Lego fortress of happiness.

Turns out that watching for deer is exhausting.  It's always good when you have a pillow to rest your weary head upon.

After Christmas we decided to get a new car.  We'd had Tallulah the VW Passat for almost 12 years and she was getting tired.  We sold her and got a new shiney pretty zippy car.  I'll post a picture of "Lily White" tomorrow! 

Thanks for coming by!

Some Halloween, a sunset and a Birthday.

Declan was Jack Sparrow for Halloween.  It wasn't initially what he wanted to be, but once we got to Target and he saw his options, this was the best one.  I made his pirate boots out of felt.  Surprisingly enough, he was the only Jack Sparrow that I saw while Trick-or-Treating in Georgetown.  Cool make up courtesy of Greg, and I quick made the felt beard, braided with beads and stuck to child's chin with glue dots!  When I would catch a glimpse of him in the rear view mirror, it didn't even look like him!

Teagan was Super Girl.  She opted out of any make up, but rocked her cool costume with authentic red boots.  I actually thought her costume was darling.

Maren chose to be a Ladybug.  Up until the time I took this picture she was not going to wear the wings.  Then decided to put them on for the photo.  Greg drew her eyelashes on.  She was thrilled!

Here are the 3 of them.  Georgetown beware....

I painted the girls room lavender.  I made the little butterfly pictures on the shelves.  Their room still needs something else on the walls, but I haven't decided what yet.

I also upgraded Declan's bedding to more 'mature' plaid.  He liked the car bedding he's had since he was 2, but I was ready for a change.  I'm going to do something on the walls in here as well, but I'm thinking horizontal planking or something along those lines.  I'll have to think some more on that...

Greg called me out to see this beautiful sunset.  When we first moved in here, we busted our tail getting things done during day, in hopes of relaxing out on the deck before the sunset was gone.  We recently realized that we haven't sat out on the porch and watched the sunset in awhile.  I ran to get the camera, hoping to get some shots before it got too dark.

I love that I have a knack for catching a dog whizzing in many pictures.  I should go back through to see if I can do a post of all dog whiz pictures.  Won't you be on the edge of your seats waiting for that?  LOL!

Then we celebrated Greg's birthday with Lemon cake.  I tried to make the little blue candles into the shape of a "4" since I had a "5" candle.  But the kids were quick to point out that I had 55 on Greg's cake.  I love that they are old enough to start pointing out my faults.....

Been Busy Bees Over Here!

Well.  We've been sanding, drilling, prepping, painting.  All the while taking kids to soccer practice 4 nights a week and games every Saturday.  Toss a little (ha!) laundry, the occasional grocery trip, volunteering at the school (I'm the room Mom for Teagan's 1st grade class, and I run a book club in Declan's 3rd grade class) and general household chores leaves me no time for blogging.

But because I would like to see the progress we've made, here are some recent pictures of the house!

We have had the house/porch painted, new screens and shutters.  This is looking down to the house from the garage.

At the beginning of summer I bought outdoor fabric yardage to sew my own pillows for the patio furniture.  I am really good at sewing zippers in pillows now, after making at least 20 pillows.  Many, many thanks go to my Mom, who cut all the fabric into the sizes I needed for the pillow forms I bought at Ikea. 

Won't you come sit on my porch?

Remember when it looked like this????

I've also been busy decorating for Halloween.  From years past you know this is a big deal for the Loop kiddos.  I've been also going thru closets and donating unused/unneeded things.  Seems like I always have a pile waiting to be taken to Goodwill. 

 

You can see the "Loop Art Gallery" on the wall there, I took individaul pictures of the art and finally took it all down.  It was up since summer, as were the tissue pom-poms I made for Teagan's birthday party in June.....

I'll be back with more pictures when I get a chance to take them, but thanks for looking for now!

An Obvious Hiatus...

One day, once I catch my breath, I will blog again. I promise!

Just for fun!

This is what our house looked like when we first saw it. 

Teagan took this picture yesterday.

And just for reference, what the back yard/house looked like.

The Backdeck and Chickens

We (read: mostly Greg) spent the past weekend sanding, fixing and painting the back deck. Many of the balusters needed to be replaced, some of the wood was raw, other parts were either white or green.  We quit trying to figure out what the previous people were trying to do a long time ago.  It really freed up some brain space to let go of that...  Glad I remembered to get some 'before' pictures.

This back staircase goes into our masterbath.

I took this picture this morning, the mostly finished job.  Major improvement if you ask me!  Plus, you could walk out on the deck barefoot now (not that I recommend that out here....) without the risk of splinters or raised nailheads.

The entire time we were working on the deck, we had 'the gals' supervising us, openly discussing how I didn't tape the tarp far enough over and the house was going to get over sprayed (it did).  They wondered why in the world my window is open right next to where Greg was sanding?  Good point.  They wanted to know what the paint tasted like, if they fit under the furniture, if they would get painted if they stood *right* there.  You get the idea.  We did discover that we have quite a few characters on our hands. 

I know I said I wasn't going to name these chickens, but it's pretty hard not to, once you realize they have personalities.  LOL!

This is Penny, a Rhode Island Red.

Maude, a Barred Rock.  She has a thing for Greg...

Here, in the forefront is Donna, a Blue Andalusian.  Behind her is Clementine, an Easter Egger, and the Brown Leghorn is behind them.  I think I'm going to call her Harriet.

This is Blanche, a Delaware.

This is the Ancona, not yet named.  She is really skittish, thinks I'm the Devil.

Here is Ellie Mae, she's a Cochin. 

This is another Easter Egger, haven't named her yet either.

Well, thanks for coming by!